Scariest experience at sea?

[TheSevenSeas]

Was just wondering if anybody had some interesting experiences of being at sea in frightening conditions. Anything from sailing through an area with high risk of being invaded by pirates, the vessel swaying so much to the side that you're convinced it will tip or (god forbid) a chef who likes cooking vegetarian meals each night for dinner?

The following things listed all happened to me- on the same trip in fact! So please don't feel afraid to share and remember you're doing it for the good cause of lonely sailors sitting bored in their cabins.

[YoungMariner]

Shifting cargo in the hold in heavy weather, 3 x 150mt units loose... A few near misses (never my fault or whilst I was conning I hasten to add), fires, blackouts whilst manoeuvring, etc. I've only been at sea 10+ years.

[HarmlessWeasel]

Shifting cargo in the hold in heavy weather, 3 x 150mt units loose... A few near misses (never my fault or whilst I was conning I hasten to add), fires, blackouts whilst manoeuvring, etc. I've only been at sea 10+ years.

how much is a mt?

[EH75]

Metric ton?

[Martyboy]

A metric tonne?

I've been through the gulf of aiden and the Malaca straight a few times although that was a breeze, had a fire in the engine room during my cargo watch but again it was just a baby. Had 2 crew members working in a cargo hold that stopped responding to the bridge and I was a cadet on watch so I was sent to the top of the hold to shout down and see if they responded, but they never, so that was a scary experience, turns out they were just working near reefer containers and couldn't hear me............ I was down aft and the 2nd mate froze and stopped reporting distances and we ended up about 1m from the berth in Jeddah............. but other than that lifes been good

[linnez]

Still haven't been put off joining the Merchant Navy Just ;D interesting to hear the stories , hope i never experience them!!

[linnez]

And anyways my worst sea experience would be crossing the Bay of Biscay on a family cruise back in 2010 on the Independence of The Seas in a bad season , the weather was awful and the sea was so choppy , So theres the rookies worst sea experience

[TheFunktopus]

Whilst on my first ship, we spent three weeks in dry dock. During the last day of the dry-docking we had a surveyor from the classification society onboard who wanted to see the boiler safety valve tested, which I wasn't told about. Stood next to the boiler drum rolling up a fire hose (I thought they had the boiler running for fuel preheating, so did not at all expect the safety valve to lift), when the air is suddenly torn asunder by what I can only describe as an earth shattering, ear-splitting, howling-roar that literally rattled my eyeballs in their sockets.

The boiler was located at the top of a set of stairs, about 30 steps up from the main deck of the engine room. I probably touched about two or three of those steps at most as I positively darted out of the E/R like a stabbed rat.

[Martyboy]

My last trip was from Jan-Mar in the north sea so we had some very very bad weather, that wasn't scary, it was more of a pain in the arse than anything. Fun for the first day of been thrown around, after the 3rd nd 4th night of deodrant cans rolling around my cabin and getting no sleep............ I was less than ammused

[Frenchy]

So far I have been chased by pirates in the Red Sea, sailed through two typhoons, had a tsunami pass under us in the Pacific, we were the first ship into Japan after Fukushima nuclear disaster and were later told by the company not to let the crew on deck, (after we had just finished a 12 hour cargo watch), I have experienced a HO oil spill, a death of an AB on board, the rolling of an oil tanker to 35 degrees in a beam sea, a collision with a supertanker that was 7 times our tonnage whilst we were carrying AVGAS that ended up with us being declared unseaworthy by LLoyds and requiring us to enter dry dock and have 750 tonnes of steel replaced and I have been on a ship that ran out of food whilst crossing the Indian Ocean.

I still love my job however.

[Steve]

I was going to get my black cat out for this one (pirates, collisions, oil spills, fires, the usual), but in view of Frenchy's post, I'm not going to bother. Frenchy wins! :-)

[Martyboy]

So far I have been chased by pirates in the Red Sea, sailed through two typhoons, had a tsunami pass under us in the Pacific, we were the first ship into Japan after Fukushima nuclear disaster and were later told by the company not to let the crew on deck, (after we had just finished a 12 hour cargo watch), I have experienced a HO oil spill, a death of an AB on board, the rolling of an oil tanker to 35 degrees in a beam sea, a collision with a supertanker that was 7 times our tonnage whilst we were carrying AVGAS that ended up with us being declared unseaworthy by LLoyds and requiring us to enter dry dock and have 750 tonnes of steel replaced and I have been on a ship that ran out of food whilst crossing the Indian Ocean.

I still love my job however.

Oh aye, we were a day out of Yokohama when the Tsunami struck, receiving 2 hourly radation level reports by e-mail was fun. We were also in Syria in 2011 when it all started getting tasty initially, the next ship on our run which was due in 2 days later was diverted away from the country, we could hear the gun fire from the port, and the navy shelling "over our heads" into the city

We done a full SOPEP drill and their was still oil in the pump's and hoses from a previous incident and we ended up spilling it on the deck, resulting in an actual incident but I think you still win

[JonathanI]

Been chased by pirates but couple of warning shots from the armed guards onboard sent them
Packing. 7m swell with a 4.5m freeboard was fun !. Scariest thing ever was going through the gulf of Aden and hearing two ships putting out a maybe as both of them were getting attacked by 15skifs ! You could hear loud bangs in the background. Then the radio just went dead ships trying to call them no reply and this went on for a good 30mins turned out they got away safely but it was scary that 30mins of not knowing what had happened.

[laura]

Had one side of the propulsion (azipods) stop in the middle of a North sea storm, ship went beam on to the weather and the rolling just got worse and worse (it felt like synchronised rolling at the time, but it was probably just the sea height and the violence of the roll that gave me that impression) half the bridge seemed to come loose as well...

I don't think I've ever been so happy to get alongside in my life, and I think that goes for the rest of the crew. Still puts the fear of god in me to think about it, been in plenty of bad weather but that really was terrible. Oof....

Frenchy still wins though!

[geordie dancer]

Can't black cat Frenchy.

Witnessed a rating fall two decks down the square of the hatch ship during my first week on board. Miraculously, he wasn't seriously hurt (he landed on a pile of dunnage) but at the time I thought I had just watched someone die.